Parenthood, Support, and Expectations Theme Analysis

There was a restlessness to her, an inability to be still or settled. She jiggled her legs, bounced her knees, cracked her knuckles, twirled her thumbs. She hated being cooped up in the apartment on a sunny day, paced the rooms from wall to wall to wall, a cigarette dangling from her mouth. “Who wants to go for a walk?” she would say. Her boyfriend Leon would tell her to relax, sit down. “Sit down? We’ve been sitting all day!” Deming would want to stay on the couch with Michael, but he couldn’t say no to her and they’d go out, no family but each other. He would have her to himself, an ambling walk in the park or along the river, making up stories about who lived in the apartments they saw from the outside.

If he hadn’t gotten detention—if he had left school at the usual time—if he hadn’t resisted Florida—if he’d intercepted the fight she had with Leon—she would still be here. Like a detective inspecting the same five seconds of surveillance video, he replayed last Wednesday afternoon, walking the blocks from school to home.

Daniel’s muscles contracted. So Angel hadn’t gone to Nepal. If they were still friends, if she was still talking to him, he would tell her about Michael’s e-mail, about Peter’s accusation of ingratitude, how torn he felt between anger and indebtedness. If only Peter and Kay knew how much he wanted their approval, how he feared disappointing them like he’d disappointed his mother. Angel had once told him that she felt like she owed her parents. “But we can’t make ourselves miserable because we think it’ll make them happy,” she had said. “That’s a screwed up way to live.”

“I’m not going to say it’ll be easy,” said Peter. “But white, black, purple, green, kids of all races have struggles with belonging. They’re fat, or their parents don’t have a lot of money.”

“That’s true,” Kay said. “I was a bookworm with glasses. I never belonged in my hometown.”

“Issues are colorblind.”

Peter finally said, “This might sound callous, but honestly, whatever we do is going to be better than what he experienced before. You remember what the agency said, how the mother and stepfather both went back to China. We’re the first stable home he’s ever had.”

My life felt like a confection, something I had once yearned for, but sometimes I still wanted to torch it all over again, change my name again, move to another city again, rent a room in a building where nobody knew me.

Look how he wants his mama, my roommates would say, and a couple of them also got goo-goo-eyed, and a sliver of fear would present itself: what if I would always be required to offer myself up, ready and willing, constantly available? What had I done? And then: what was wrong with me?

“But you’re okay?” A hopeful note crept into her voice.

Daniel walked back to the living room. To acknowledge his mother’s regret meant he had to think of what her leaving had done to him, the nights he’d woken up in Ridgeborough in such grief it felt like his lungs were seizing. Months, years, had passed like this, until he became adept at convincing himself it didn’t matter.

“That doesn’t excuse you going away,” he said. “You have no idea what happened to me. You can’t pretend you didn’t mess up, that you did nothing wrong.”

Once I might have become this woman, free to move across the country because she heard a city was beautiful. Instead I had become a woman like Vivian, watching TV, cooking for you and Leon, making sure the dumplings were fried and not steamed, unsure if I should marry my boyfriend but not wanting to lose him either. An uneasiness settled into me. This October would be followed by another winter, another spring, until it was time for October again.

“We were so afraid of doing something wrong. We thought it would be better if you changed your name so you would feel like you belonged with us, with our family. That you had a family.”

Daniel never knew if Kay wanted him to apologize or reassure her. Either way, he always felt implicated, like there was some expectation he wasn’t meeting.

“Mom.” He didn’t want to see her cry, especially if it was on his behalf. “It’s okay.”

“Your great-great-grandfather owned that land once. He grew vegetables, he had horses. He was an enterprising man. Jacob Wilkinson.”

Daniel pressed his spoon into his soup again. There was a quiet sorrow about the weighted silver cutlery, the paintings of bygone people and places. He was the last of the Wilkinsons, the only grandchild. His only cousins were on Kay’s side of the family, and they had his Uncle Gary’s last name. The way Peter spoke about it, being the last of the line was a great responsibility; he had to do something special to live up to Jacob Wilkinson’s legacy. This man he looked nothing like, whom, if he had been alive, would probably never accept Daniel as a true Wilkinson.

In the end, he hadn’t been able to do what Peter and Kay wanted. Three more semesters of classes, followed by graduate school. Staying upstate. He hadn’t been able to do what Roland wanted either, play the music Roland wanted him to play.

“There wasn’t anything I could do,” I said. “I couldn’t go back to America after being deported. I couldn’t go anywhere. If I thought about you too much I wouldn’t be able to live.”

I knew how it must sound to you: I hadn’t tried hard enough, I didn’t love you enough. But I could have kept looking forever. I needed you to understand.

She wasn’t listening to him. He recalled how she and Peter had insisted on English, his new name, the right education. How better and more hinged on their ideas of success, their plans. Mama, Chinese, the Bronx, Deming: they had never been enough. He shivered, and for a brief, horrible moment, he could see himself the way he realized they saw him—as someone who needed to be saved.